Articles in the How We Love Now Category

My friend Anne just turned 60, and she looks great. She has a great job, the capstone to a great career. She has two kids she adores and two ex-husbands she doesn’t. She is full of energy and curiosity and has tons of friends. But no “boyfriend” (to resurrect a term from the past) to do things with, to have sex with (or not), to laugh with, but not necessarily to get serious with (though that would be nice).

Q. What do you think are the major changes or shifts that occur for women in second adulthood when it comes to relationships?

A. By the time women reach second adulthood, they have accumulated confidence and they are beginning to know what they want in a relationship. We are less needy, we’re about finding, not losing, ourselves in a relationship. Women say they feel more empowered to set the terms in a new relationship or to renegotiate a long-term marriage. Our requirements have shifted. The thoughtful man with a Ph.D. In life experience becomes more appealing as we age – not like old days when the “bad boy” was the sexy choice. By the time we’re fifty we know what love is and what it isn’t.

Frequently after I have talked about the challenging changes and opportunities that are confronting women at a lecture, a man will come up to me and say, “Why don’t you do your next book about men? We are going through a lot of the same transitions that women are.” To which I always reply that a book about men in Second Adulthood has to be written by a man. My main credential for explaining things is that I am on the same trajectory as the women I write about. It would be presumptuous to try to explain men to men.

It’s a special treat to be interviewed by a dear friend, long-time colleague, and inspiring visionary; it was also an honor to be invited to share my ideas with her on “WMC LIVE with Robin Morgan,” which regularly features fascinating and brave women from around the world. My favorite features, though, are those in which Robin takes on language. In this show she is particularly astute when she suggests we abandon the term “cougar” and replace it with “Colette” as in the older major French writer who regularly took young lovers, much to their delight as well as her own. — Suzanne Braun Levine

I am making a new friend…. I think; you never know about such things until you are actually there, at intimacy. But this friendship is already taking a surprising turn.

I find myself going at it in a very different way from relationship-building in the past. I am still looking for trust, humor, empathy, curiosity — the same old things I’ve always looked for — but the stages I find myself going through to get there are new.

“One of the lovely things about writing a book about women in my stage of life is that I learn so much that makes my life richer. The message of How We Love Now is the same message that I have taken away from all the thoughtful women I interviewed – that we are in more nourishing relationships than we stop to appreciate and that those relationships are helping us grow more authentic and more “bodacious” – to use Eileen’s word -every day. And we should stop to celebrate that.

I will be traveling to Mexico for the San Miguel Writers’ Conference 2013 – February 13- 18 and am excited to be on a terrific panel of women writers titled: Women Write Their Lives and a separate event, a discussion about: The Early Days of Ms. Magazine and the Current State of Feminism.
The San Miguel Writers Conference brings – Bilingual Conference for Writers & Readers in together writers, agents and readers for panels, workshops and pitch sessions It takes place in the World Heritage City and “cradle of Mexican …

While writing How We Love Now and the new introduction for the paperback edition, I gathered insights, information and many, many wonderful stories from women and men I met in person and on line. Many introduced themselves to me after lectures and many more in the Comment sections at websites where I blog.
I will be celebrating the new edition of How We Love Now here, with friends around the country and at my “homes” on the Web where I will be blogging in 2013!
Here are five of my favorite sites …

We are not our mother’s generation when ‘the change of life,’ as menopause was called, meant that life stopped changing. Second adulthood instead is about change and new kinds of intimacy. It is about the eyes-light up glow that is triggered by a wide range of loving relationships, including grandchildren, friends, colleagues as well as romantic partners – and new beginnings.

Jane Fonda recently celebrated her 75th Birthday and shared the good news about being that age on her blog: “I am happier than ever, more at peace, healthy – well there are times when my body hurts all because of osteoarthritis. But that doesn’t define me…” (Read more at “Jane’s Blog”). I remembered that she had blogged about reading HOW WE LOVE NOW and thought I would share it here. Enjoy!